We don’t live in a country or time where illness and death are things that can be done on the cheap; please be generous with what you can spare, as these are the sorts of expenses that can pin the loved ones left behind with debt that lasts years. Grief is a natural and sacred and blessed process; debt is not.

I didn’t know Donald well, but we’d met a few times at PantheaCon, and he always recognized and remembered me each successive year, which I was impressed with, given his celebrity. He struck me as a man who genuinely cared, a quality visible clearly in his eyes. Even as he gave lectures and workshops, at least those few that I attended, he had a genuine attentiveness to his audience… not just as “a collective audience”, but to each person who raised their hand or commented or even sat in knowing receptive silence. He looked at them with eyes that saw, and when you’re a presenter who is getting pestered and bothered by so many people at such a frenetic event as PantheaCon, that attentiveness is a noble, noble virtue.